More on Books

After looking over my options, I picked the book I was least likely to read.  The winner is Robert M. Sapolsky's Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.  


Sapolsky is a Professor of Biological Sciences and Neuroscience at Stanford University.  Gary has watched his lectures on stress on You Tube and says they are interesting, educational, and .... funny. (He says you type in Stanford in the You Tube search engine and go from there.)  The book is filled with cartoons, so if I get confused with the scientific jargon, I'll just look at those.  I'll try to read at least three chapters a week.  I can feel my synapses stretching just thinking about it.

But first I will finish Terry Pratchett's Snuff.   I've been reading Pratchett's Discworld series for years.  They are satire set in a fantasy world.  I roar with laughter then copy out his best witticisms in a notebook that contains the best quotes from books I read.  

But now Pratchett has Alzheimer's disease.  He has already lost his reading and writing ability so dictates his books on a voice activated computer.  I am sorry to report that Snuff shows he is losing his tight grasp on his writing. Anyone can write, but it is the re-writing and editing that make the difference between a hack and a brilliant author.  Snuff is full of action but weak in the satire department.

There is something positive about this shift.  Three serialized movies have been made from the thirty one Discworld novels:  The Colour of Money, The Hogfather, and Going Postal.   The only one that came close to the essence of the humor in the books was The Hogfather.  Discworld is far too complex to be captured on film.  Snuff, on the other hand, is full of the kind of action that directors like.  It would work well on film.

Snuff may be the last of the series, but I will remember and re-read Pratchett at his best, because his best was awesome.